Flattened: An iOS 7 design gallery

Apple announced its seventh iOS version, and it's quite a looker.

We knew it was going to happen; we just didn't know Apple was going to make such a drastic change. iOS 7 was an expected announcement going into WWDC, and with Scott Forstall out and Jony Ive working with software engineering Senior Vice President Craig Federighi, we knew that the next version of iOS would look different. Now we know that "different" means "really, really flat."

Today, Apple revealed its new mobile OS, which goes heavy on the "crisp and clean" and leaves Apple's signature skeuomorphism by the wayside. We brought you some images from the seats of the Moscone Center in San Francisco, but to take a closer look at this new OS, we put together a gallery of Apple's design changes using the company's own images. Expect a full review of the OS update when available.

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It all starts with the new lock screen, which will be the first thing you see when you pick up your phone. iOS 7 will permit live animations on the lock screen and in various other places within the OS.

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It all starts with the new lock screen, which will be the first thing you see when you pick up your phone. iOS 7 will permit live animations on the lock screen and in various other places within the OS.

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While iOS 7 retains the same spatial layout of older iOS versions, you can see that the app icons look flatter and the text is slimmed down and more angular.

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"Distinct and functional layers help create depth and establish hierarchy and order," writes Apple on the company website. "The use of translucency provides a sense of context and place."

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Apple's phone app is a good place to take a closer look at the new font employed throughout iOS 7. You can also see in the mail app that Apple loses the "button" look for the "Send" and "Cancel" buttons. Within Safari, you'll find wildly simplified navigational buttons on the bottom.

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A look at the keyboard in iOS7. In the conversation above, the colors flatten out the text boxes considerably, making them look less like bubbles.

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iOS will get the OS X feature called AirDrop, which will allow iOS and OS X devices to share files directly over Wi-Fi. Unlike the phone app, the AirDrop notification screen doesn't use a semitransparent screen behind the "Accept" and "Decline" options.

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Working within Siri, you see a darker set of colors than the ones you're greeted with throughout the rest of iOS7.

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Siri pulls up movies playing at a theater in San Francisco.

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Take a look at the new colors that Apple employs. The company calls its palette choices "precise." It has an interesting mix of pastels and red there.

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The new text is quite noticeable in the redesigned calendar app.

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The contacts app has a beautiful new layout, with a crisp, three-color scheme and those same wire-drawing icons that you saw in Safari. Apple sets off the number buttons from the function buttons in the calculator app with bold colors. And the FaceTime answer screen looks very similar to the phone's.

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You can see the new look in the App Store and in Passbook, but these two apps still look a bit busy.

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A very flattened and angular music app shows that the white of the top-most bar blends into the white framing of the app. Everything is one!

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Apple tries to keep a clean look in the new iTunes Radio app despite the competing visual ideas in cover art.

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Transparent overlays with a single (and giant) red button to take a picture show Apple trying to maximize visual space in the camera app.

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The blue type here mirrors the blue type of the contacts app. You can see that Apple is organizing the photos here by date and location.

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This very cool macro view of your photos by year is sure to make you feel kind of old.

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Here's another look at Apple's new color scheme. Notice the pastels, reds, and blues. (Unless, of course, you're colorblind).

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Apple has switched up the way it will present tabs in Safari. That weird angle gives the effect of peering downward into a magazine basket or a stack of papers.

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Apple announced that in 2014, some new cars will come with Siri integration. The on-screen dash will retain the typeface and more spartan layout of iOS 7.

Honestly, I'd hoped for something a bit more... or maybe just different. I feel like we're beginning to see a lot of homogenization in mobile operating systems. iOS, Android, and Windows Phone are beginning to look very similar (though WP still stands out the most to me at the moment). Undoubtedly part of this is due to similarities of the hardware (they're all touch-screen handsets with few buttons and a host of sensors and radios, largely the same).

I've always liked the iOS UI, including Skeumorphism, so it's not surprising that my first impression is: I don't like it. Looks like someone forced the design lead behind Windows Phone 7/8 to do their take on iOS.

I'm not a fan of everything being flat. And the color scheme is too bright for me, I like my user interfaces dark.

Apple obviously took a HUGE cue from Windows Phone on this redesign. That's not a totally bad thing. The WP design has a lot of good innovations. However, I like my buttons to look like (you know it's coming) buttons. It's a step backwards in UI design to take away the button outline.

I'm holding my iPhone 5 up to these pictures, and I'm not feeling great about iOS 7. The main screen icon changes are pointless. Other places, the WP look works.

The M*tro look didn't seem to be a killer feature for WP and I doubt this look will be as important to iOS as the new usage metaphors—such as swipe-left to go up/back(?) a level—visual cues from translucency and features of the built-in apps.

Still, that whole-year calendar shows a conscious effort to present more info without making it look crowded. Betcha that white iPhones start becoming more popular.

I like the current design much better. This looks to me like yet another case of taking a well-designed UI and redesigning it for no apparent reason. The UI on my iPhone works perfectly well the way it is and nothing in any of those screenshots looks like an improvement.

Removing button outlines is stupid. How is a user supposed to know that is a tappable item? They're expected to understand that the brightly colored text on a white background (which is difficult to see because the font is all skinny now) is for interaction?

I hated the skeuomorphism, but this is a step too far the other way. I also hate the white everywhere... They're going to need to include something like f.lux in the system by default so tech people don't burn their eyeballs out at night.

I've always liked the iOS UI, including Skeumorphism, so it's not surprising that my first impression is: I don't like it. Looks like someone forced the design lead behind Windows Phone 7/8 to do their take on iOS.

I'm not a fan of everything being flat. And the color scheme is too bright for me, I like my user interfaces dark.

Agreed, especially about being too bright. My first impression was "Well, it's not too fugly" which is hardly high praise. I'm sure there's bits that will be genuine improvements, Game Center for one certainly can't get much worse, but I'm not thrilled with the overall design choices.

I've always liked the iOS UI, including Skeumorphism, so it's not surprising that my first impression is: I don't like it. Looks like someone forced the design lead behind Windows Phone 7/8 to do their take on iOS.

I'm not a fan of everything being flat. And the color scheme is too bright for me, I like my user interfaces dark.

I agree. I also don't like the softer rounding on the app icons. Or is that just my imagination?

On the other hand, the animations in the videos Apple has released are totally gorgeous.

The choice of font feels a little too 'Metro', so I am not sure that was necessarily a smart move? Saying that, as much as I am not a fan of flat interfaces, this certainly looks like a better approach than Metro. What bothers me in Metro is that it feels a little too abstract, losing cues to functionality and being hard to interpret from a real-world perspective. If Apple has this right (I am still on the fence), then it will have the new design, but still be useable by the average user (non-techies and non-hipsters).

I like it but not that much. Some icons like the Safari, compass or newstand are too flat. Those look like they came out of Windows 3.1. I hope the icons get some redesign. Otherwise, I'm ok with it. It'll get some time to get used to it though.

What really gets me psyched, though, are the underlying changes on the OS and the new APIs. I hope to see lots of use from game controllers and push triggers.

The yellow color and small white text makes in game center makes it hard to read. Also the yellow at the top of notes is kinda ugly. Looks better than previous iOS' but looks a tad to bright. Should have a light and dark theme to choose. Also not sure about the dots for reception, not sure if it will look good in time or not to me. Like the lock screen though.

I think it's beautiful. Like the love child of Apple and Microsoft. There's no need for every button to look like a physical thing anymore - we're beyond that. MS knew it with Metro, and now Apple is catching up.

My gut reaction was that iOS7 looks like Android 4.0+ moreso than WP8. The lockscreen, the white backgrounds with black and blue font that I thought was Roboto upon initial glance. Personally I like the cleaner overall look but I'm not a fan of the Lisa Frank app icons.

Guess there is some validity in the claim that all the major OSes are converging rather than diverging.

I don't care for some of the icons but overall like what they are doing. They obviously liked what MS was doing too and they should, MS has been doing some real nice stuff lately (I never thought I would be saying that). Overall I'm excited about the change and happy it's something significant.

My gut reaction was that iOS7 looks like Android 4.0+ moreso than WP8. The lockscreen, the white backgrounds with black and blue font that I thought was Roboto upon initial glance. Personally I like the cleaner overall look but I'm not a fan of the Lisa Frank app icons.

Guess there is some validity in the claim that all the major OSes are converging rather than diverging.

Ok some screens don't look bad but the home screen looks like iOS on LSD. I think I need to sell my remaining Apple shares. John Ive went insane.

Edit: I mean some things look nice, the calendar is amazing. But other screens look like hell, like the pink,purple, light-blue homescreen with its colour palette from hell and for example the Safari buttons.

Hey looks like someone took 50cc iOS and added 30cc of Android 4+ and 20cc of Windows Phone, and then decided they'rd better go for a light colour scheme otherwise people might mistake it for one of those 2 OS's!

It looks OK, but it's clear that Apple is now "following" instead of leading. In the end however it's all just fashion, and in 5 years we'll all be back to adding shine and depth onto design elements to make it look different.

There are a few things I'd like WP to take... The simple gradiant/background so the task switching screen isn't so stark would be nice! Granted, I think WebOS did that the prettiest (and was super useful with their card metaphor).

I do feel bad for everyone who dislikes it, which is understandable. Granted, unless you cab adjust tile sizes and the like (can you?), it seems to have only superficial similarities to Metro, which isn't a good fit, IMO. A big part in why I like my WP phones so much is the customization of tile sizes, plus the Live tiles. I keep my Start Screen oared down to a single screen of my favorite stuff, and that's it. Everything else is on the list...